Mayor Darrell Steinberg says Supreme Court homeless ruling won’t impact Sacramento. Is he right?
As a result of a June U.S. Supreme Court ruling, top City of Sacramento staff have been laying the groundwork to ramp up homeless sweeps and criminal anti-camping citations.
After the ruling, Mayor Darrell Steinberg cited the city’s success in curbing homelessness by “combining more shelter, housing, and services with an insistence that people cannot live in large encampments and violate ordinances protecting sidewalks, parks, and other critical spaces.
“This court ruling should not change our balanced, compassionate approach,” the mayor said in a June 28 statement.
However, actions that have been largely unannounced publicly could lead to an overhaul in the way the city responds to its homeless crisis.
On Friday, the city added a new item to its 311 system, allowing residents to report a new complaint — unlawful camping. The category falls under the city’s Incident Management team, which means it could include a police response. That means the unhoused at the reported camp could be cleared or criminally cited for camping. Previously, reported incidents that were directed to the Incident Management Team included blocking sidewalks, being within 500 feet of schools, or storing items on public property.
For the callers who did not know if the camp met one of those specific categories, they would likely previously file the complaint under “homeless concern,” which was directed to the Department of Community Response, social workers and behavioral health specialists — people who cannot write criminal citations or order sweeps.
Since Friday, the city has received 126 complaints for the “unlawful camping” category, said city spokesman Tim Swanson. The Sacramento Police Department spokespeople did not immediately respond to an email asking how many criminal citations it had written for camping-related violations in recent weeks.
In March, police issued a criminal citation for storing personal items on public property to Theresa Rivera in the River District. She now faces a fine of $233. On Wednesday police again swept Rivera, who is in a wheelchair, and threw away her medical papers and supplies.
“My hands are sore from packing,” Rivera said Thursday. “I can’t even sit down and eat right now because they keep coming around and around til we have nothing left.”
The type of criminal citation that Rivera received is among the options that Incident Management Team can take in responding to the newly added unlawful-camping 311 category.
Steinberg, whose term ends in December, has said he does not support charging homeless people hundreds of dollars or jailing them. But under the city’s form of government, City Manager Howard Chan, not the mayor, is in charge of day-to-day functions.
The Grants Pass ruling overturned the 2018 Martin v. Boise ruling and is generally interpreted to mean cities can go back to clearing and citing homeless camps on public property without offering shelter beds.
Email sent to council
After the high-profile ruling, the city posted a long FAQ to its website July 25 to help the public understand what it means for them.
The public post did not include an important new policy however, which top staff only sent to the council.
“In an email to the council we were told the IMT will be primary, however other city departments were going to be asked to enforce ordinances proactively when they have capacity to do so,” Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela said. “I’m interpreting that to mean code, park rangers and police officers ... I certainly think that would increase citations.”
Sacramento saw a large decrease in its homeless population from two years ago, from about 9,300 to 6,600, according to the latest homeless census, Valenzuela pointed out. There are about 2,500 people on the waitlist for one of the city’s 1,300 shelter beds.
“For the first time in over a decade we are seeing progress in addressing homeless, so now is absolutely not the time to change course,” she said. “We need to continue to be focused on getting people enrolled in services ... that’s harder to do when you’re moving people this frequently and using penalties to enforce local ordinances”
No more notice
The city when it clears camps typically gives at least 48 hours’ notice. But on July 16, the city gave no notice to clear a large camp under the overpass at F and 5th streets. And earlier this week, the city placed a new type of notice at camps that gives a “temporary 24 hour notice.”
“The city of Sacramento is educating residents about this code following the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson and is temporarily providing 24-hour notice for people in violation to comply,” reads a copy of one of the notice, placed near Harris and Grand avenues in North Sacramento.
The notice looks different than the bright green “notice to vacate” stickers posted at camps by police and code enforcement officers.
Valenzuela said she wants to know what a “temporary” 24-hour notice means.
The 24-hour notice is shorter than the 48-hour notice Gov. Gavin Newsom included in his executive order last month. The executive order only applied to state property, not city property where the city is posting the 24-hour notices.
Still, 24 hours is not enough time for the unhoused to safely move their survival gear, especially with temperatures in the triple digits this week, said Crystal Sanchez of the Sacramento Homeless Union.
“It puts excessive stress on their bodies, especially in the heat, to move the entire camp,” Sanchez said. “It is also unreasonable for those with disabilities and children without accommodations. Deprivation of survival gear and basic needs is state-created danger and will force a person to do what they need to survive.”
The city is under increasing pressure to clear homeless camps, including increasing lawsuits from businesses and from Sacramento District Attorney Thien Ho.
The ruling has been making waves across California. San Francisco has also stopped giving its usual 72-hour notices to clear camps and criminally citing homeless people, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Valenzuela and Steinberg, whose office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, asked for city staff to present on the topic at an upcoming council meeting. It’s unclear if that will happen at the next meeting, which is scheduled for Aug. 13. Tuesday’s council meeting lasted 58 minutes and contained no items on the homeless crisis.
This story was originally published August 1, 2024 at 3:30 PM.
